Museum Monday 2026/23

 

detail of the Portrait of Bianca degli Utili Maselli and Her Children by Lavinia Fontana, now at the Legion of Honor

San Francisco Opera: The Barber of Seville

Il barbiere di Siviglia has a long first act, so the intermission line at the lower-level men's room was even longer than usual. The man in front of me, probably late 30s / early 40s, said he had never seen Barber before & he was enjoying it a lot.

"But I'll bet you knew a lot of the music, didn't you?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Bugs Bunny, right?" I responded. He laughed & said he had been surprised to realize when the music started that nine-year-old him was being prepped for Rossini by Chuck Jones. And here he thought it was just Saturday morning cartoons!

Not only are snatches of the music mainstays of the more sophisticated & perennially popular mid-century cartoons, but this opera has not only held but been a mainstay of the operatic stage since its premiere in Rome in 1816. All this makes it easy to take Barbiere for granted. I had skipped its last few appearances in San Francisco; in fact, I realized when I glanced at my Opera List that I had not seen it live in 20 years. This stylish & witty production by Emilio Sagi, with a powerhouse & mellifluous cast of singers, reminded me why Barbiere is an evergreen.

The staging is evocative enough of an appropriate time & place without being burdened with cumbersome "realism" or pointed updating. Generous use is made of a troupe of Spanish dancers, who set a stylish flamenco-tinged tone. There are lovely surreal touches throughout, such as the chorus crawling out from under the buildings that dominates the right side of the stage, or instruments (a guitar for a serenade, for example) being handed out from that crawl space. The buildings, which are both the  outdoors &, with some adaptations, indoors of Doctor Bartolo's residence, resemble those toy-like structures you see in the backgrounds of early Italian Renaissance paintings, only here instead of pastels, the buildings are all white. The sets & costumes are mostly whites & tans, with touches of color added as the story progresses, until we end with bright splashes of pink & red & a video of colorful fireworks exploding as Almaviva & Rosina drive off in a cherry-red car.

The production is genuinely funny, which is always a bit of a surprise & relief for a work as old & well-known as this one. There was lots of appropriate & appreciative laughter from the audience. Clever use is made of props, but it's not overdone: Rosina, very much in vixen mode, jabs at her surroundings with a pair of garden shears; streamers shoot out of Don Basilio's sleeves at the climax of La Calunnia. It's easy to do too much of this sort of thing – for me, Berta's business with sneaking cigarettes didn't work, mostly because I find smoking repellant – but the balance was on the right side here, & the funniest moments actually came from the material: after Basilio winds up his extravagant paean to Calumnia, Bartolo's decisive, "No, we'll do it my way" got a hearty & well-deserved laugh from me as well as the rest of the audience, & other than the man in front of me in the restroom line who was seeing his first Barbiere, I suspect most of us knew it was coming.

Benjamin Manis led a well-paced & stylish orchestra. There are two casts in this revival; here's the one I heard last Friday: Joshua Hopkins as Figaro, Maria Kataeva as Rosina, Levy Sekgapane as Count Almaviva, Renato Girolami as Doctor Bartolo; then, in all performances, Riccardo Fassi plays Don Basilio, Catherine Cook plays Berta, Olivier Zerouali is Fiorello, Gabriel Natal-Báez is Ambrogio, Thomas Kinch an officer, & Andrew Truett a notary. There was outstanding work from all of them. Sekgapane tossed off & held high notes with deceptive & charming ease; he was given his long final aria, & it was a pleasure to hear, though I did wonder why Rossini hadn't given equal time to Rosina & Figaro. It would have been delightful to hear even more of Hopkins & Kataeva. Girolami manages to make Bartolo amusingly pompous & calculating without overdoing it. The cast radiates a sense of fun; even Ambrogio's silent dance with Berta is joyous. Scenes that are often sort of a trial (like Almaviva disguised as a music instructor wishing peace & joy on an increasingly aggravated Bartolo) are genuinely bright & funny.

If I sound slightly surprised at how fresh & fun the show was, & how much I enjoyed it, that's probably because I am. I had seen the Met livecast of Barbiere last year, & though I found it on the whole quite entertaining, I also felt that at a number of points the plot machinery was showing its age: cranking & creaking rustily (always a hazard with works rooted in the commedia tradition). There are comedies whose every production – whose every performance even – reveals new angles & insights & flashes of color; Così fan tutte is my go-to example of these opalescent operas. Barbiere is not one of these. It gleams like a shiny, even brilliant machine, reliably producing an entirely respectable & to varying degrees enjoyable product. I thought this production was as good as Barbiere is going to get, making this old work, so alien to us in many of its rooted assumptions, into something fresh, funny, stylish, invigorating. This was the right way to break my drought with this particular war-horse.

Friday Photo 2026/23

 

café life

Museum Monday 2026/22

 

a hat designed by Caroline Reboux, seen at SFMOMA as part of the special exhibit Matisse's Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal

Random notes on the California Antiquarian Book Fair

The first time I went to the California Antiquarian Book Fair, it was in downtown Oakland, near where I was working at the time. That year's theme was the Wizard of Oz, always a lure. The themes are pretty loose, however, & many vendors have their specialties that are completely unrelated to the theme. The fair is in northern California every other year; on its last two visits up here it's been at Pier 27 on the Embarcadero in San Francisco.

That first time, while wandering down the overwhelming aisles, I saw a booth offering a signed first American edition of The Handmaid's Tale. That's what I have! thought I. I wonder what it's going for? The answer was $500, so if I want to re-read that book I need to find a cheap paperback, while my signed hardcover sits pristinely on its shelf.

That was the price as of however many years ago that was (the pandemic messed up the neat biannual schedule). Values, of course, go up & down, depending on desire & fashion & other whim-driven parts of a collector's nature.

(the approach to Pier 27)

Here's how I acquired my signed Handmaid's Tale: when the novel came out in 1985, I was working at a publishing house in Boston. A friend was working in a different publishing house, also in Boston. Atwood was going to appear at the Harvard Coop to sign copies of her new book. My friend couldn't get away from work but I could so I told her I would get her a copy as well. When I handed Atwood the second book to sign, I said, with sadly typical clumsiness when speaking to someone I admire but don't know, that the second copy was for a friend who was "chained to her typewriter" (typewriter rather than computer: that's how long ago this was). I just meant that she couldn't get away from work. But as my fancy phrasing came out, I noticed Atwood stiffen ever so slightly. I realized she was probably fearing that my friend was a writer & that I would press her latest manuscript on the famous published author. I figured the best thing to do was to smile & say thank you effusively & then leave, so that's what I did. 

Ms Atwood, if I gave you a moment's discomfort on that day in 1985, though undoubtedly it's been long forgotten by you, who have better things to think about, then let me offer my apologies!

Signed books are odd things. If the book & author have achieved classic status, then the value skyrockets: meaning that your love for the book & the author has rendered your beloved signed copy essentially unreadable, therefore voiding the thing for which you love the item. It can then serve no practical purpose in a library, your own or a more official collection; it just connects you by principles of contagious magic, like the relics of the saints, with the beloved author, & with those words you now must read in a less costly form.

If only that were the only time in life when our love neuters into uselessness the thing that originally made us fall in love!

Despite all that, I have a deep & irrational love of signed books.

I am reminded of standing in line in a church in Padua, many years ago, to see the tongue of the famously eloquent preacher Saint Anthony of Padua. There I was, surrounded by stooped black-clad crones, waiting in line to see the shriveled, blackened relic. The crones, to my malicious mind, were also shriveled, blackened relics, though lacking in eloquence; Saint Anthony, though of Padua, was born outside of Lisbon, which made him a favorite with the Portuguese, & I have a beautiful old lithograph of him which once belonged to a great-aunt of mine, a singularly unpleasant woman whose conventional outward piety did not prevent her from wreaking damage on all around her, damage which went down through generations, as such damage does.

Book Fair drinking game: down a shot every time you see someone with a New Yorker tote bag.

Of course we're looking for "ephemera". We ourselves are ephemera, & like calls to like.

What we collect is a form of autobiography. I grew up reading the Oz books over & over, which is why I went to that first Fair, the one with Oz as the theme. Each time I've gone to the Fair most of the vendors have something that grabs me but as a sort of relief, there are some booths I can skip, such as those devoted to early medical publications: not my interest, but I could see they were magnets for others. I am happy to leave such things to those who want them. I have enough costly interests as it is.

I heard one young Indian man ask another if he had seen any books in Sanskrit. That made me realize that though you'd think a place like the Book Fair would be a goldmine for fascinating or hilarious overheard conversations, & maybe it is & I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, most of what I overheard was along the lines of "That looks like my copy of . . ." or "So I'll see you in Paris / Copenhagen / London. . . "

(Not a patch on the time I was at the Legion of Honor, looking at Ferlinghetti prints in a side room, when I heard an old lady out in the hall announce loudly, "Every night I wash & perfume my feet. I don't know why, I just do.")

These Fairs, with their double floors each holding dozens of vendors, can be overwhelming. Almost every booth has something of interest, from old prints (baroque European, Meiji Japanese, theatrical flyers of all times & places, all desirable) to rare books to fascinating photographs. It's a lot to take in. Fortunately or not, arthritic joints make it difficult for me to crouch down & see what's on the lower shelves, so a sort of inadvertent winnowing goes on.

The joints restrict me in one way, & poor eyesight in another. Some print, depending on the size & distance, is difficult for me to read. This means that I'm deprived of the harmless but enjoyable voyeurism of looking at what other people are reading on the train.

I made what I thought was the witty & thematically appropriate sartorial choice of my First Folio t-shirt, but the only actual compliment I received was on my bracelets, which I had pulled on without much thought. This seems allegorical, but of what I will let the reader decide.

I sent this photo to a friend who responded by asking if I were cosplaying as the First Folio. 

The Antiquarian Book Fair seems like an obvious place for cosplay, but I've never seen an instance of it: no bonnet-clad Austenites, no exotically appareled Byrons, not even an all-purpose dramatic black cape.. Does the cosplay crowd skew too young for something with "Antiquarian" in its name? Is cosplay more of a "fringes of pop culture" thing? But if so, what could be more fringe in our overly digital age than an interest in paper ephemera?

Maybe next time the Fair is here I should dress up as Aldus Manutius.

Some of the beauties at these fairs are clearly out of my financial reach, & so become akin to museum exhibitions. Then there is the dangerous amount: one large enough to give me pause, but still manageable, "manageable" in the sense that an anaconda finds devouring a warthog manageable: it can absorb it, but it takes a while & there's a distorting effect on the desired slender lines.

Since childhood I have had a low-level but constant fascination with the celebrated Ghent Altarpiece of the Van Eyck Brothers. I tried once, when a child, to duplicate it, using my deluxe 64-pack of Crayola crayons. I would not regard the results as a great success. Two years ago at the Book Fair, I was struggling to take it all in (having just discovered that there was an entire second floor of vendors) when I saw IT: a large & glorious 19th-century reproduction of the Altarpiece, issued by the Arundel Society. I was in one of my ill-advised fits of trying to be fiscally responsible, so I held off, feeling I should consider it at least over night, as it was definitely going for a warthog-in-the-anaconda amount. By the next dawn I had realized that yes, it was imperative that I own that piece. I headed back to San Francisco, but BART was full-on BARTing & between stalled trains & redirected destinations & unexpected transfers, I ended up getting to the Fair over an hour later than I had planned. I immediately headed to that vendor & made a beeline right to the Altarpiece at the back of his booth. My first inkling, as I stood there staring, practically drooling, that something was wrong was that the proprietor didn't come over to talk about the piece or anything, although I must have been glowing with the desire of ownership. After a few minutes I told him I wanted to buy it. He was sorry to say he had sold it five minutes earlier! (So, yes, if BART had been behaving, it would have been mine!) I practically collapsed at his feet. He did take my information down in case he should come across another example, but I think we both knew how unlikely that was. He headed back to England & I to the East Bay. I wonder if he ever thinks about that incident; I do almost every day. I had never known that such a thing as this Arundel Society reproduction existed, & now its absence is a gaping emotional hole in my life.

So often it's the extravagance we decline, the temptation we don't give in to, that we truly regret.

That was the same year an artist at the de Young Open ghosted me when I tried to buy her work. It was also the year I had to replace my roof, my furnace, & my hot water heater, all after losing my job. I wondered what cruel joke the Universe or Fate or whoever (some antic saint?) was playing on me: I had to spend so much on the literal roof over my head, when Art, that might have reconciled me to reality, kept eluding me.

Yes, I know, I know. Why does the Universe keep teaching me lessons I've already learned?

The absurdist emotional economy of those bad with money: "I had to spend [horrific amount X] on [necessary maintenance-type thing that absolutely had to be done] so I am justified in spending [slightly less horrific amount] on [thing I actually want]."

Just as there are people who consider themselves "culturally Jewish", I think (or at least I'm working on this theory) that there are people who are "aesthetically Catholic". One manifestation: veneration for the relics of the saints; see above re: signed books, & for another example, we have The Typewriter of Djuna Barnes.

Towards the end of the Fair, I circled back to one vendor & there was a young man asking the proprietor in excited tones how he had managed to get the typewriter of Djuna Barnes?!? The proprietor told him it came from a man in New York City, a long-time friend of the author. When the excited young man left, I asked where the typewriter was: right at my feet! (The arthritic joints had prevented me from seeing it, of course.) I asked permission to take a photo, because I try to be well-behaved.

Yes, I am slightly amused that all those venerating this relic of the celebrated Lesbian are men.

The reason I circled back to that vendor was I had noticed on his upper shelf a stunning framed broadside (I love poetry broadsides, & feel not enough publishers take advantage of this undoubtedly lucrative market). The poem was North Haven, Elizabeth Bishop's elegy for Robert Lowell – signed by Bishop! I've mentioned how much I love signed items, & I could read this one, as it was a framed sheet, not a book. But I told the vendor I would need to think about it. And I did: for about five minutes. I reminded myself, with the shadow of the Ghent Altarpiece hanging over me, that I knew I would end up wanting, craving, needing the piece, & if I didn't buy it now & carry it off with me, I would have to pay for shipping, & then worry about its safe arrival, & doesn't Socrates assert that the main guiding light of a wise life is to know thyself?

Like a wise man, I knew myself, & what I would & would not regret. Reader, I purchased it.

Friday Photo 2026/22

 

a warning on a sunny day

Terry Riley at 90: A Piano Celebration with Sarah Cahill

Revolutionary composers (Philip Glass, Steve Reich, John Adams) grow old like the rest of us, but it they & we are lucky they continue to be revolutionary; one such is Terry Riley, who turned 90 last year. Last Sunday at the San Francisco Public Library, pianist Sarah Cahill showed us there was much more to him than the iconic (yes, I'm going to use that overused word) In C.

For me this was one of the too few occasions to hear Riley's music performed live. It was about 10 years ago that I made the mistake of booking two events in Civic Center on the last Sunday in June, completely forgetting that it was the day of the Pride Parade (there were also, unusually, home games for both the Giants & the A's, & BART was a complete, though colorful, nightmare): a matinee of Marco Tutino's brand-new opera Two Women & an evening performance by the Kronos Quartet of Riley's Salome Dances for Peace (the title alone! . . .). What struck me & has stayed with me, other than the resolution never to book anything in San Francisco on the last weekend in June, is that the newly composed opera sounded dull & conventional (& problematic in other ways, which I won't go into here), while the by no means new Riley score felt as fresh as a spring breeze. Since then, he's been one of the composers whose work I try to hear live.

Cahill spoke before each piece. Contrary to my usual reaction to speaking from the concert stage, I found her remarks useful & interesting, & I always find a level of illumination in hearing from a composer or someone who has worked directly with him. At one point Cahill talked about working with him on one of these pieces & he noticed something missing from the printed music, & he asked her permission to write it in, to which she answered, of course (saying to us, I mean, of course, you're Terry Riley. . . ). A little anecdote like that says a lot about his respect for his musical interpreters as collaborators & compatriots. It was pretty charming.

The first piece was Keyboard Studies from 1964. Cahill noted that while many prominent pianists play Glass's music, there are many fewer playing Riley's (she mentioned, besides herself, Gloria Cheng in LA). Parts of this piece had the sort of muscular filigree, between baroque & bebop, that sounds "minimalist", but Riley is a man open to many influences & his pieces often veer off into unexpected directions. Then we had the lovely, dreamy Fandango on the Heaven Ladder from 1994.

There were two tribute pieces by younger composers, which I think were written for Riley's 80th birthday. First was Samuel Adams's Shade Studies. I think I had heard it before, at a Cal Performances recital. I remembered liking it, & I liked it all over again last Sunday. The composer was prompted by childhood memories of lying under the piano while his father, John Adams, or perhaps Riley, played. There was something tender about the soft waves of music. I was reminded of a wonderful Japanese word I learned at the de Young Museum's recent & magnificent Art of Manga show: komorebi, which is "the light that leaks through trees" – you have to love a culture that felt the need to have a single word to describe that effect.

Back to Riley for The Walrus in Memoriam, a kind of fantasia based on that very strange Beatles song, I Am the Walrus; the piece ends memorably with the left hand going lower & lower on the keyboard while the right hand goes higher & higher, until there's no more room on either end & the reverberations die out. That was followed by the second tribute, Danny Clay's Circle Songs. Clay was there & spoke briefly about his composition. He did mention that if he were to write such a piece today he would perhaps emphasize less the In C qualities of Riley's music & concentrate more on its great variety. It's still beautiful, confluent with the Adams piece.

There were two more Riley pieces to round out the program. The first was a brief number dedicated to Pauline Oliveros, The Great Beauty; & by brief, I mean it's officially supposed to be played in I believe 86 seconds, though Riley told Cahill that was a "more or less" number, another example of the collaborative freedom he gives his musical interpreters. Just as she began playing, we could hear a distant chirping sound; "What is that? crickets?" Cahill asked. ("Pauline would have loved that!" asserted someone in the audience.) It sounded to me as if someone had pushed open an emergency exit door. At least the beeping ending before the piece did. The final number was the eloquent & moving Be Kind to One Another. His music is open to many styles, embracing them, including them in something that sounds distinctly his own, something generous & perpetually spring-like, sunny & fresh with reviving life.

This concert was a free program at the San Francisco Public Library. The meeting room was full & the audience was appreciative. This was a compelling tribute to Riley & a memorable gift to lovers of new music. As it was a sunny but cool day, I took a long walk afterwards, trying to replace the caustic & banal beat of the streets with the recollected richness of Riley.

Another Opening, Another Show: June 2026

When heading out this month, it's useful to keep in mind that there are events only implied here, events that will result in parades, parties, street fairs, & other suchlike occurrences that could mess up your travel / transit plans: leave early, give yourself plenty of time, enough time to enjoy whatever pops up to delay you instead of cursing it. I'm thinking mostly of Pride & Juneteenth, but there's also Bloomsday, & though I think there isn't a local celebration of that, there obviously should be.

Theatrical

ZSpace presents Becoming a Man by P Carl, directed by Lyam B Gabel, the story of a person who lived as a girl, then a queer woman, before transitioning to manhood after age 50, at ZSpace's Steindler Stage from 28 May to 14 June.

Phantom of the Opera returns to the Orpheum from 28 May to 21 June.

On 4 -6 June at ODC, People’s Circus Theatre will combine "circus, dance, and physical theatre" to portray The Unfinished Work of Camille Claudel.

On 12 - 14 & 19 - 21 June at the Victoria Theater in San Francisco, BARD Theater presents the Bacchae by Euripides, translated by Emily Wilson, adapted by E M Ervolina & Edward Paddock, choreographed by Paddock, & directed by Ervolina; after the 12 June performance, there will be a talkback with Wilson.

From 18 to 28 June, the Oakland Theater Project presents The Fre by Taylor Mac , directed by Mylo Cardona, "in which a lone Hero searches for order in a society that worships impulse. . . Part mud-riot, part rave, The Fre is a queer, all-ages play that stages polarization inside a literal ball pit. . . ".

On 19 - 21 June at Z Space's Steindler Stage, Fresh Meat Productions presents the Fresh Meat Festival of trans, queer and community performance; featuring "dance, music, drag, theater, and interdisciplinary performance" by Filipinx, the New Voices Bay Area Transgender, Intersex & Genderqueer Chorus, Zuzu Beloved, Shawna Virago, Sean Dorsey Dance. & new works by B DeVeaux, Pangaea, Shawn Lee with Bay Area Independent Chinese Dancers, & JanpiStar.

From 19 June to 12 July at the Potrero Stage, Golden Thread Productions & SFBATCO (the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Company) co-present Arab Spring, a new comedy by Denmo Ibrahim, directed by Nailah Unole didanas’ea Harper-Malveaux, about a recovering addict, his controlling big sister, & their attempts to give their deadbeat Dad an Islamic burial "before his body goes cold".

On 22 - 24 June as part of its Champagne Staged Reading Series at the Ashby Stage, Shotgun Players presents The Gull, an adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull, written & directed by Tara Blau Smollen, set "in 1938 Oak Bluffs, a historic Black vacation community on Martha’s Vineyard".

From 24 June to 19 July in Z Below, Word for Word & ZSpace present Absolutely Science Fiction! Stories by Ray Bradbury & Kurt Vonnegut, directed by Delia MacDougall; the stories are Bradbury's The Veldt & Vonnegut’s The Big Space F*ck [sic].

From 25 June to 19 July, Theater Rhinoceros presents the west coast premiere of Goat Blood by Mark-Eugene Garcia, directed by Alejandro Torres, about a double date that goes very, very wrong.

Operatic

The San Francisco Opera closes out its season this month, starting with Rossini's The Barber of Seville, conducted by Benjamin Manis & directed by Emilio Sagi, with Figaro played by Joshua Hopkins (28 May & 5, 9, 13, 20 June) & Justin Austin (3, 6, 12, & 21 June, as well as the Encounter on 17 June); Rosina is played by Maria Kataeva (28 May & 5, 9, 13, 20 June) & Hongni Wu (3, 6, 12, & 21 June, as well as the Encounter on 17 June), Count Almaviva is Levy Sekgapane (28 May & 5, 9, 13, 20 June) & Jack Swanson (3, 6, 12, & 21 June, as well as the Encounter on 17 June), Doctor Bartolo is Renato Girolami (28 May & 5, 9, 13, 20 June)  & Patrick Carfizzi (3, 6, 12, & 21 June, as well as the Encounter on 17 June), Don Basilio is Riccardo Fassi, Berta Catherine Cook, & Fiorello Olivier Zerouali, & to reiterate the dates: 28 May, & 3, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 20, & 21 June. On 17 June, you can attend The Barber of Seville Encounter, in which part of the opera is performed & then there's a themed party in the lobby. I've never been to one of these but they're popular enough for the Opera to do them regularly.

The other opera on San Francisco Opera's June schedule is a revival of their stunning Keith Warner production of Elektra, with music by Richard Strauss to a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal; Eun Sun Kim conducts, with Elena Pankratova in the title role, Michaela Schuster as Klytemnestra, Elza van den Heever as Chrysothemis, Kyle Ketelsen as Orest, & William Burden as Aegisth. & that's 7, 11, 14, 19, 23, & 27 June.

Festival Opera in association with the San Francisco Early Music Society presents Handel's magnificent Alcina, directed by Zachary Gordin & conducted by Derek Tam, with a cast including Nikola Printz in the title role, Courtney Miller as Ruggiero, Shawnette Sulker as Morgana, Sara Couden as Bradamante, Spencer Greene as Oronte, Nina Jones as Oberto, & Isaiah Musik-Ayala as Melisso; there are concert performances in Hertz Hall on 13 - 14 June as part of the Berkeley Early Music Festival & Exhibition, & then a full production at the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek on 19 & 21 June.

Choral

Magen Solomon leads the San Francisco Choral Artists in Love, Lost and Found, a program featuring works by Gesualdo, Clara Schumann, Hensel, di Lasso, Monteverdi, Roger Nixon, Kirke Mechem, Daniel Afonso, Russell Burnham, & Allen Shearer, as well as premieres by Composer-in-Residence Max Marcus & Peter Hilliard, as well as the winning New Voices Project work by Yuri Lee; & that's 31 May at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco, 6 June at First Lutheran of Palo Alto, & 7 June at Saint Paul's Episcopal in Oakland.

Chanticleer offers American Early Music, a program designed to reflect "the various cultures that shaped early America, . . . Through polyphony, hymns, folk traditions, and spirituals. . . "; you can hear it all on 31 May at Saint John's Lutheran in Sacrament, 1 June at First Congregational in Berkeley, 2 June at Mount Tamalpais UMC in Mill Valley, 5 June at Mission Santa Clara, & 7 June at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco.

Artistic Director Chris Filice leads the International Orange Chorale in I Sing the Body Electric, a "vibrant choral program celebrating the beauty, vulnerability, and power of the human body through song. . . .  in music exploring embodiment, movement, love, and connection": you can find out what is on the program on 5 June at Saint Mark's Lutheran in San Francisco & & June at First Presbyterian in Berkeley.

On 7 June at ODC, Pacific Edge Voices will go on an A Cappella Road Trip with Deke Sharon, a celebration of songs linked to specific American places.

On 12 June at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir will give a Juneteenth Celebration concert.

On 13 June at the Curran Theater, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus celebrates the music of Dolly Parton.

On 20 June at Old First Concerts, KITKA presents an evening of Balkan, Baltic, Slavic, & Caucasian songs for the Summer Solstice; the ensemble is also celebrating the release of Kolo, "the ensemble’s thirteenth album on their own independent Diaphonica label. . .  .The concert (and album) evokes cosmic cycles of creation, growth, destruction, and renewal—the eternal turning of seasons and the shared rhythms of lives and voices woven together".

Vocalists

On 13 June at the Community Music Center of San Francisco, you can hear Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath in Song, a program featuring Dominic Argento's From the Diary of Virginia Woolf & Ned Rorem's Ariel: 5 Poems of Sylvia Plath, performed by soprano Jesslyn Thomas & mezzo-soprano Erin Neff along with pianist Kevin Korth & clarinetist Andrew Friedman.

On 16 June at the Barbro Osher Recital Hall at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Merola Opera Program & San Francisco Opera Center present the third & final of this season's Schwabacher Recital Series, featuring bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen & pianist Carrie-Ann Matheson (who is also Artistic Director of the Opera Center & the Merola Program), along with 2026 Merola Opera Program participants: Shannon Crowley, soprano; Charlotte Kelso, soprano; Chester Seungyup Han, tenor; Ryan Bryce Johnson, tenor; Paul Jang, baritone; & Deven Shah, pianist; together they will perform Ravel's Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, songs by Henri Duparc, Là ci darem la mano from Don Giovanni, Ed or fra noi, parliam da buoni amici from Tosca, & pieces by Rossini, Verdi, Francesco Schira, & Respighi.

On 25 June at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music's Hume Concert Hall, the Merola Opera program will present L’Anima Napoletana, a selection of Neapolitan songs chosen by Merola faculty member Mario Antonio Marra.

On 26 June, San Francisco Opera presents its annual Pride Concert, hosted by Sapphira Cristál & conducted by Robert Mollicone, with vocalists Nikola Printz, Melody Moore, & Reginald Smith Jr, who will perform works by the late, much lamented Michael Tilson Thomas, as well as Gounod, Giordano, Offenbach, Terence Blanchard, Michael Abels, Stephen Schwartz, kd lang, Brandi Carlile, Luther Vandross, Stevie Wonder, & others.

Orchestral

On 5 - 6 June, Elim Chan leads the San Francisco Symphony in Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été with mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, Wagner's Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, & Debussy's La Mer. This already looked like a great program, but Chan, of course, has recently been named the next Music Director of the Symphony, so there will be that level of interest & glamor on top of the wonderful pieces she's conducting.

On 7 June at Herbst Theater, Paul Schrage leads the SF Civic Symphony in Mussorgsky's Scherzo in B-flat major, Stravinsky's The Firebird, & Holst's The Planets; the concert is free but RSVPs & donations are gratefully accepted (it's general admission but giving a donation gets you seated first).

On 12 - 14 June, Tianyi Lu leads the San Francisco Symphony in Zhiân by Iman Habibi, Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Violin Concerto (with soloist María Dueñas), & Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade.

On 12 - 14 June at First Presbyterian in Berkeley, Ming Luke leads the Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra in the world premiere of Michael Schachter's Terezin Requiem & Haydn's Theresienmesse in B-flat major.

On 18, 20, & 21 June, James Gaffigan leads the San Francisco Symphony in the Beethoven 9, with vocal soloists Jessica Faselt (soprano), Kelley O’Connor (mezzo-soprano), Thomas Cooley (tenor), & Peixin Chen (bass), as well as the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, led by Jenny Wong; the Symphony is dedicating these performances to the memory of the late Michael Tilson Thomas.

On 20 June at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Robert Mollicone leads the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony in Dearly, Queerly, Over the Rainbow, a program featuring Harold Arlen's Concert Suite from The Wizard of Oz, Jake Heggie's Good Morning, Beauty (with vocal soloist Nikola Printz, singing the words of Taylor Mac), & the Brahms 3.

On 21 June in Herbst Theater, John Kendall Bailey leads the SF Civic Symphony in Górecki's Symphony #3, the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (with soprano soloist Marnie Breckenridge), along with Chopin's Fantasy on Polish Airs & his Revolutionary Étude played by pianist Daniel Glover; the concert is free but RSVPs & donations are gratefully accepted (it's general admission but giving a donation gets you seated first).

On 21 June at the Chabot College Performing Arts Center in Hayward, Jane Brown leads the Bay Philharmonic in America in Rhythm & Rhapsody, a program featuring Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (with soloist Allegra Chapman), the Dvořák 9, From the New World Symphony, Aaron Copland’s Hoe Down, Saturday Night Waltz, & Fanfare for the Common Man, & José Pablo Moncayo’s Huapango.

On 25 - 27 June, Stéphane Denève leads the San Francisco Symphony in Guillaume Connesson's Flammenschrift, Poulenc's Organ Concerto, & the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony (the latter two pieces feature soloist Olivier Latry).

Chamber

On 2 June at Old Saint Mary's in San Francisco, Noontime Concerts presents violinist Florin Parvulescu & pianist Xak Bjerkin; their program has not yet been announced.

The Friction Quartet (Otis Harriel & Kevin Rogers, violins; Mitso Floor, viola; Doug Machiz, cello) presents Transformations, a program featuring Julia Wolfe's Blue Dress, György Ligeti's String Quartet #1 (Métamorphoses nocturnes), & Haydn's String Quartet opus 76 #6 in E flat Major on 5 June at Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco & 6 June at Saint Bede's Episcopal in Menlo Park.

On 13 June at the Noe Valley Ministry, the SF Civic Music Association presents An Afternoon of Chamber Music, featuring Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos, Jason Gibbs's Experiments in Consilience, Gordon Jacob's Swansea Town, Miriam Hyde's Trio for Piano, Flute, Clarinet, & the Brahms Piano Trio in C major, Opus 87.

On 28 June in Davies Hall, a chamber group of San Francisco Symphony musicians will perform Gareth Farr's Taheke, Sarn Oliver's CAT (Contemporary Artful Tonalities) String Quartet, Joan Tower's Petroushskates, & Fauré's Piano Trio in D minor, Opus 12.

On 28 June at Old First Concerts, Duo Soriga (soprano Josephine Lee & gayageum performer-composer Hwayoung Shon) will perform four new pieces by Shon & four new arrangements of traditional Korean tunes.

Instrumental

On 3 June in Davies Hall, the San Francisco Symphony presents violinist Njioma Grevious in recital; with pianist Andrew Goodridge, she will perform a selection from Bach's Sonata in A minor, Within the drifting contours of the land… by Electra Perivolaris, the Scherzo in C minor from the F-A-E Sonata by Brahms, Messiaen's Theme and Variations, Clarence Cameron White's Levee Dance, & Prokofiev's Sonata #2 in D major, Opus 94a.

On 9 June in Old Saint Mary's in San Francisco, Noontime Concerts presents pianist Oliver Moore (his program has not yet been announced).

On 21 June at Old First Concerts, pianist Jason Sia will perform Poème: A Song Without Words by Carmencita Guanzon Arambulo, L’isle joyeuse by Debussy, the Larghetto from Chopin's Piano Concerto #2 as transcribed by Carl Reinecke, Gaspard de la nuit by Ravel, & Earl Wild's Grand Fantasy on Gershwin’s Opera ‘Porgy and Bess’.

See also organist Gail Archer performing Messiaen at the Cathedral of Christ the Light, listed below under Modernist / New Music.

Early / Baroque Music

The big event this month is obviously the biannual Berkeley Early Music Festival & Exhibition (as early-music mavens know, Berkeley does even-numbered years & Boston odd), which launches on 5 June with Bach's Saint John Passion, led by  Nicholas McGegan & featuring the Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble & the Cantata Collective (that performances is in far-off, for some of us, Palo Alto, but the program repeats on 7 June in Berkeley) & which concludes on 13 - 14 June with Derek Tam leading the Festival Opera in concert performances in Hertz Hall of Handel's Alcina (there will be fully staged performances later this month in Walnut Creek; see above under Operatic for cast & links). In between there is, of course, lots going on, including gamelan & music from China as well as medieval, Renaissance, & Baroque Europe; check here for the full Festival schedule, but also check here for the wealth of Fringe Festival concerts; there is also the Exhibit, free & open to the public, on 11 - 13 June at the South Wing of First Congregational in Berkeley; click here for more information on the Exhibit & Marketplace & for a list of exhibitors.

Modernist / New Music

On 6 & 7 June at the Ruth Williams Opera House in San Francisco, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble presents the world premiere of Steam by David Dominique, with a libretto by Dominique & Joseph Tepperman, & cinematography by Kevin Everson, along with Stravinsky's A Soldier’s Tale.

On 9 June in Herbst Theater, the ARTZenter Institute & the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players will present another of their concerts, with free admission & no reservation required, featuring the latest winners of their Emerging Composer program; this time the world premieres will be Divided Realities by Eric Estrada Valadez, A Grief Observed by Euna Joh, Memories of Storm & Light by Luca Pasquini, & My Rage is Quiet by Jackson A Waters.

On 20 June at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, Gail Archer will give an organ recital featuring Messiaen's Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité.

On the Solstice, 21 June, New Music Bay Area presents the beloved annual Garden of Memory Concert at Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland; you can see a line-up of this year's performers here & if you're interested, don't hesitate, as this event tends to sell out. (In fact, since it takes me quite a while to put these lists together, it may be sold out by the time you read this; but I'm not deleting it (I don't list sold-out events) because there may be volunteering opportunities.)

On 26 & 27 June at Littlefield Concert Hall at Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, Other Minds presents Composers Inside Electronics to celebrate A David Tudor Centennial; there are "two evening concerts, as well as an afternoon discussion/demonstration of some of the techniques behind Tudor’s experiments with electronics"; get more information here.

Jazz

On 11 -14 June, SF Jazz presents Afro-Cuban jazz master Chucho Valdés & his Royal Quartet (Valdés on piano, José Armando Gola on bass, Horacio “El Negro” Hernández on drums, Roberto Jr Vizcaino on percussion).

Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass appear at Davies Hall on 16 June.

Dance

On 5 - 6 June at Theater of Yugen's NOHSpace, the U.S./Japan Cultural Trade Network presents Memento Forest — katami, a multimedia dance performance directed & performed by Marina Fukushima, exploring the realities of grieving & remembering a loved one.

On 12 - 13 June at ODC, you can experience the Community Showcase, the "culmination of the spring performance workshops for adult students", featuring a Fusion Bellydance Ismaaouni Performance Workshop with Jill Parker & Maite Gasco; Contemporary Dance with Improvisation & Contact Improvisation (Intermediate) with Suzanne Beahrs; Contemporary Dance and Martial Arts with Daiane Lopes da Silva and Soungyoung Park; ballet with ODC Ballet Director Chris Lam; Ballroom with Rafael Dominguez & Alise Halbert; Contemporary Dance with Erin Yen; Performance and Choreography with Nol Simonse; & Tap with Vanessa Sanchez; there will also be a special guest, Sambaxe.

Mostly Museums

Maren Hassinger: Living Moving Growing, a retrospective highlighting Hassinger's "work across sculpture, performance, video, and installation from the early 1970s to the present", opens at BAM/PFA on 6 June & runs through 29 November.

Ancestral Echoes — Crops of Empire, with work by mixed-media artist Demetri Broxton, opens at MOAD on 10 June & runs through 16 August.

Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory, the first major museum exhibition dedicated to the Bay Area artist, will display her collages, found-object sculptures, & immersive installations at the Oakland Museum of California starting on 12 June & running through 18 October.

Cinematic

The 25th San Francisco Documentary Festival takes place 28 May to & June; click here for the schedule.

BAM/PFA launches its summer films series this month, starting with French Noir: From the Shadows into the Light on 4 June, a series illustrating "how French cinema has been steeped in the characteristics of film noir through the decades—from the period of Poetic Realism in the 1930s–40s to the Nouvelle Vague beginning in the late 1950s and beyond" (David Thomson will be there to present several films, including Renoir's The Rules of the Game, as part of the launch of his latest book, A Sudden Flicker of Light: A Revisionist History of the Movies); Summer with Monica Vitti begins on 11 June & includes her work with Antonioni as well as a later series of popular comedies; & A Complete Stanley Kubrick, which includes films by other directors that Kubrick was associated with, starts on 12 June.

Brava Theater will present its "very first edition of Scissor Cinema: A Double Feature" with two classic lesbian films, The Watermelon Woman by Cheryl Dunye on 5 June & Saving Face by Alice Wu on 6 June.

From 5 to 11 June, the Roxie Theater, in association with American Cinematheque & "nearly 100 theaters across the country and around the world" presents Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair, which is pretty self-explanatory, & there are some great films in the line-up. (I've just heard about "Bleak Week" programming at movie houses, but apparently it's a nation-wide, if not world-wide thing. I'm all for it!)

As part of their Disney Restoration series, the Orinda Theater will present Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, introduced by Kevin Schaeffer, Director of the Restoration and Library Department  of Walt Disney Studios, on 6 June.

On 6 June at the Curran Theater, there will be a 40th anniversary screening of Clue: The Movie with stars Tim Curry & Lesley Ann Warren there in person, which is why I'm listing this, because I recently saw this movie for the first time, knowing that it's a cult classic & has a stellar cast, & "disappointed" doesn't begin to cover my reaction. I found it not only unfunny but really homophobic in its humor, even for a 1980s comedy. If you love the movie, enjoy! If you don't know anything about it, you may want to take a look before you commit your time & money.

On 15 June at the Roxie, you can see The Cocoanuts (yes, that is the correct spelling), the cinematic debut of the Marx Brothers, & if you want to see what a Broadway show would have been like in 1929, this early sound film gives you a good idea.

The 50th Frameline Festival will take place from 17 to 27 June; check here for a schedule of films.

On 19 June at the Curran Theater, there will be a special screening of Airplane!, with an in-person discussion after the show with stars Julie Hagerty & Robert Hays.

On 20 June at Brava Studio, Brava Theater Center presents Brava’s Short Block “Queer Resilience” ; see here for more information. 

On 26 June at the Paramount in Oakland, you can see Walt Disney's Fantasia.

Museum Monday 2026/21

 

Two sculptures by Alexander Calder at SFMOMA: to the right, Big Crinkly, & to the left, Intermediate maquette for Trois disques (Three Discs)

Friday Photo 2026/21

 

cherry season